The twins were almost ten months old when Lizzie found the lump. She hadn’t been looking for it, she hadn’t been doing a self-exam, she had simply been standing, immobilized, underneath the pounding water, more asleep then awake.
When Cal came into the bathroom, a towel knotted around his midsection, she blushed like a kid caught cheating, reached for the soap and started soaping herself vigorously, turning her back toward her husband, so that he wouldn’t catch a glimpse of her slack, stretch-marked flesh. Lifting her breasts to wash beneath them, her fingers chanced against the lump, skated over it, then returned again, her skin going instantly icy beneath the warm water.
She stepped out of the shower with soap still slicked on her body. Cal was peering in the mirror, smoothing shaving cream over his cheeks, and one of the twins (her money was on Logan) was wailing from his ExerSaucer outside the bathroom door.
“You’re dripping,” he told her.
“What’s this?” she said, and grabbed his hand. His razor clattered in the sink.
“What’s what?” Cal looked annoyed. Cal frequently looked annoyed these days. It was the babies, the sleepless nights, the messy house, her own preoccupation. Plus, he was working so hard, doing whatever he did in his suits, at his office downtown (she’d once known every detail of his day, back when she’d worn suits and had an office of her own).
“What’s what?” he asked again. “Look, Lizzer, I’ve got an eight o’clock . . .”
She lifted his fingers to the place where she’d felt the lump and pressed, keeping her eyes on his face. “There’s something there, right?”
His fingers probed briefly, then withdrew. “It’s probably a milk duct,” he said, and picked up his razor again.
“It’s not,” she said, hearing panic in her voice. “This feels different.”
“So have Lemmin take a look.” He drew the razor over his boyish face in smooth, unhurried strokes, and at that moment, she could have easily snatched the blade from his hand and slashed his throat.
The radiology department was in the hospital’s basement, and it was, predictably, dark, but someone had made an effort with potted hydrangeas, brilliantly blue, and a tank full of darting beta fish. Lizzie sat, topless, goose-bumped, her breasts compressed between clear panes of glass, thinking ruefully that this was the most time she’d had to herself since the twins had come.
Back in the waiting room, idly flipping through a limp issue of People, she jumped when the nurse tapped her shoulder. Nothing to be alarmed about . . . a common procedure . . . just double-checking.
The needle was so fine she barely felt it go in. Ten minutes later, she was out into the sunlight with a Band-Aid on the side of her breast. After fighting traffic on the Schuylkill for forty-five minutes, she arrived home to a sink full of dishes and two screaming, overtired boys, a sitter (a little rat-faced girl who Lizzie just bet would be pregnant before she finished high school) demanding eighty dollars, and a husband who rolled in at eight o’clock (after the baths, after the stories, after twenty minutes of nursing and two diaper changes), cast a cool eye over the cluttered counters and the floor dotted with rotini and peas, and said, “No dinner, huh?” and didn’t even ask how her appointment had gone.
Dr. Lemmin called the next morning. From his tone when he asked,“Can you stop by the office?” from the way he asked whether Cal could come, too, she knew that the news wasn’t good. “I’m so sorry,” he said.
Sitting there, stunned and numb, in the same chair where she’d sat when he’d told her she was having twins, Lizzie didn’t listen, hadn’t made out anything since he’d said cancer. The words washed over her like the water in the shower. “If it were you,” Cal’s voice interrupted, high and whiny, like a mosquito she wanted to swat. “If it were your wife . . .”
The doctor didn’t hesitate. Double mastectomy. Lymph nodes, ovaries, and uterus. The whole shooting match. Numbly, Lizzie had nodded. “That’s what I want,” she’d said, and when Cal interrupted, said something about considering their options and second opinions, she’d cut him off, her voice shrill and peremptory. That’s what I want. Everything must go.
Three days later, at six in the morning, she rolled over, and announced, “I’m going shopping.” Beside her in bed, Cal merely nodded. Her husband, normally so tanned, rosy-cheeked, and cheery, looked pale and shell-shocked, his face slack and jowly, his eyes wet and wounded, as if, she thought meanly, cancer was something she’d gotten just to upset him.
“On Thursday, I’m going shopping in New York,” she said. “For the day. Maybe I’ll stay over.” He nodded again. He set one hand on her shoulder, lightly, then lifted it off, as if her skin burned.
“Whatever you want,” he said. He paused, and she could tell he was waiting for something. For what? For her to thank him? For her to say “I love you”?
She squeezed her eyes shut, saying nothing, holding still even after she heard the boys start to coo, then fuss. After a minute, Cal went to them. She lay there, listening as he struggled to diaper and dress them, and then carried them, one at a time, into the kitchen, where he made a noisy show of doling out bananas and Cheerios.
Lizzie pulled her iPhone out from underneath the pillow where she’d stashed it the night before, and tapped in an e-mail address she’d looked up the night before, writing, in the memo line, Is this you?
Seven minutes later, her inbox pinged.
IT’S ME. WHAT’S UP, KID?
Recklessly, breathing hard, face flushed, fingers scrabbling at the tiny keyboard, she typed out:
I’VE BEEN THINKING ABOUT YOU. GOING TO BE IN YOUR NECK OF THE WOODS ON THURSDAY. ARE YOU FREE?
It took him nine minutes this time.
YOU TWISTED MY ARM. TELL ME WHERE AND WHEN.
You’re not really doing this, are you?
The question teased at the back of her mind as she made her calls, scheduling the port insertion, Googling support groups and nutritionists, setting up the first round of chemo, scheduling the operation. “Maybe I’ll be a B cup,” she’d joked to the unsmiling surgeon. “You know. Perky.”
Lizzie had never been perky. She’d been a double D in eighth grade, and hadn’t that been a picnic, and she’d only gotten bigger since having the boys. Her breasts made shopping a misery, had guaranteed hoots and whistles from every construction site she’d ever had the misfortune of passing, had ensured that every dress she bought required alteration, and that breast-feeding was more of a workout than some women got at the gym. Her breasts were an encumbrance, an embarrassment, and she’d planned, once the boys were done nursing, on having them reduced.
Cal liked her breasts just fine, although she’d accused him, more than once, of treating them like cantaloupes he wasn’t sure he’d wanted to buy, but Marcus, the last boyfriend she’d had before her husband and the one she still thought of, especially after a glass or two of wine, as the love of her life, had adored them.
In bed with him, for the first time, he’d reverently unfastened the clasps of her bra, and then sighed, like a man glimpsing heaven, when her breasts had tumbled into his hands. He had caressed them gently, then firmly, working at her nipples with tongue and teeth until Lizzie would be tossing her head and shuddering against him. Sometimes he’d slick them with lotion and straddle her body, cupping her breasts against himself, rocking back and forth in the slick channel they created until he threw back his head, handsome features contorted, groaning, spurting over her chest and her cheeks.
Oh, Marcus had loved her breasts. He’d loved her, too—maybe, she thought sometimes, better than Cal did . . . but Marcus, tall and fair and slim where her husband was short and curly-haired and boyish, was twelve years older than she was and already divorced when they’d met, and he’d made it abundantly clear from the beginning that he wasn’t the marrying kind. When she was twenty-eight, after three years together, Lizzie had broken up with him. She’d moved out of their apartment and spent a month weeping, unable to eat. Then, eleven pounds thinner and with shadows under her eyes and interesting hollows under her cheeks, she’d posted a picture online and spent the next two years dating anyone who’d asked. It had been two years of bad dates, and blind dates, and Jdates. And then she’d met Cal.
For the last ten years she’d been happy . . . or, at least, she’d thought she had. If her sex life with Cal wasn’t as torrid as it had been at the beginning (and if, even at the beginning, it was never as torrid as it had been with Marcus), well, then that struck her as an acceptable trade-off for all of the other things she’d wanted, and gotten: the house in the suburbs with the excellent public schools, the children who would one day attend them, the SUV with four-sided air bags, the two weeks at the shore in August and the ten days in the Keys over Christmas; a man who’d promised to love her forever, who’d share popcorn at the movies and kiss her on New Year’s Eve. She’d thought that was enough . . . only now, she wasn’t sure.
Cal came back into the bedroom and kissed her. “Love you,” he whispered and went to work. When the sitter arrived, Lizzie locked her bedroom door, went online, and booked a room at the Plaza. Eight hundred and fifty dollars. The total took her breath away. It’s just dinner, she told herself, tapping in the credit card number. Just dinner with an old friend. And don’t I deserve something nice? After all these months, after all this sleeplessness and sexlessness and now cancer, motherfucking cancer, don’t I deserve a treat?
Her suitcase looked as if it had been packed by a crazy person. A lacy black thong lay on top of a pair of stained cotton briefs. A matching black bra, with a tiny rosebud sewed between the cups, was tucked beneath a sturdy beige nursing bra. Strappy black sandals (will!) danced on top of black clogs, the right one with a splotch of YoBaby yogurt over the toes (won’t!). Lizzie tossed in her best dress, the one made of fine black wool, with the plunging neckline, and dug through her jewelry box to find her diamond necklace, a solitaire suspended on a platinum chain, that Cal had given her when the boys were born. She fastened the clasp, zipped up the suitcase, waved to the sitter, and dashed out the door before the boys could notice she was gone.
“Very good, madam,” the bellhop approved, unlocking the door to her room, as if Lizzie’s jeans and flats and Eileen Fisher tunic were the finest things he’d seen all day. Black-suited, white-gloved, he bustled around her room, opening the curtains, demonstrating how the television could be made to rise from its enclosure at the foot of the bed, adjusting the temperature, bringing her ice. She tipped him twenty dollars, eliciting a second, even more enthusiastic “Very good,” and when he was gone, she lay on the bed, staring up at the crown moldings, with her bare feet on the crisp coverlet, and her hands resting lightly on her breasts.
She slept, then ordered high tea from room service, nibbled at the salmon and egg-and-cress sandwiches before carrying the glass of Champagne into the bathroom, where she took a long, hot bath. She lathered her body with creamy soap. She shaved her legs and smoothed on lotion, and wriggled into her lacy underwear, then the high-waisted spandex boy-shorts that left her breathless and made it look like she was roughly the same size she’d been, prebabies. Downstairs, at the bar, she ordered a glass of Riesling, and sat on a stool, legs crossed, heart pounding, until she felt his hand on her shoulder and heard the low rumble of his voice in her ear.
“Elizabeth,” said Marcus. She’d always been Elizabeth to him, never Lizzie, never Betsy or Beth. He said her name and hugged her awkwardly, one armed, as she half-rose from the barstool, and it was as if nothing longer than a three-day weekend had passed between them, as if she’d woken up that morning in his bed and murmured Hi, handsome into his neck.
“Hi, handsome,” she’d said reflexively, and he’d smiled, flashing his teeth. Immediately, she felt the physical response to his voice, his touch, his body, his dear, familiar scent and wondered if it was meant to be as simple as that—you picked the one who smelled right to you (Cal, she thought, before she could stop herself, smelled like breath mints and Right Guard, which wasn’t nearly as nice). As always, she felt his voice right between her legs, as intimate as if he’d reached down and cupped her there.
Her knees wobbled as she stood. “Whoops,” he said, and took her hand, her right one, the one without the wedding band, and led her into the elegant restaurant, all plush carpet and velvet banquettes and not a high chair, or a child, in sight.
They ordered from a menu full of delicious-sounding dishes, although, later, Lizzie couldn’t have said how any of it tasted—there was pâté, a chilled soup, duck with white peaches and skate wing braised in brown butter. Marcus ordered white wine to start with, then glasses of red, a spicy Rioja. He talked amusingly about his job as a corporate litigator—the crazy hours, the crazier clients—and Lizzie talked about her kids. Over port and cheese and walnuts, he asked, “Are you happy?” and she’d shrugged, lowering her eyes, saying, “Well, it’s hard.”
“It’s a good thing you’re doing.” He leaned forward, pale eyes intent. Lizzie nodded. It had taken her a long time and many sleepless nights to figure that out—that it truly wasn’t her, but him; it wasn’t that Marcus didn’t want to marry her, it was that Marcus, damaged by his own childhood, his own ruinous first marriage, didn’t want to marry anyone.
When she looked up again she saw that the restaurant was empty, the waiters hovering politely around the perimeter. Marcus insisted on paying and walked her to the elevator. There, on the tiled floor, beneath a dazzling chandelier, he took her in his arms and held her closer than was technically proper. “Elizabeth.”
She let herself relax in his arms. Will. Won’t. Marcus sighed. She felt his lips graze the side of her neck, but she knew that he wouldn’t push it, that it was up to her. Her call. Her move.
Lizzie tilted forward, pressing her breasts against his chest. She twined her arms around his neck, and rose on tiptoe, her lips brushing his ear. “Want to come up with me?” she whispered, and he hesitated for just an instant before he said, “Okay.”
The elevator doors slid open. They stepped into the mirrored chamber . . . and then Lizzie was in his arms, her hips pressing against his, and his tongue was in her mouth and his hands were on her breasts, molding them, caressing them, sighing, as if he’d been starving and now, finally, he had food.
The doors opened. Hand in hand, they hurried down the hallway. In the room, the bed was turned down, the television set standing proudly erect, having emerged from the sheath of its case. “It wasn’t like that when I left,” Lizzie said, and Marcus laughed. She closed her eyes, overcome, as the sound of it rippling through her.
Then they tumbled onto the bed, and there, rolling on the covers, with his mouth, hot and insistent, over hers, she was twenty-five again, twenty-five and just meeting a tall, sleekly blond attorney who’d slid a martini, her first martini, on the bar in front of her and said, Try this, you’ll like it. Two hours later, she’d gone home with him. She’d been in grad school, and he’d been out with friends, and she’d never done that, never met a guy in a bar and slept with him that same night, not before and not after.
On the hotel bed, Lizzie closed her eyes, running her hands down the smooth length of his back, hearing herself make sounds she hadn’t made since labor. Just this, she thought. Just kissing. Just this is all the sweetness I need to hold me, to get me through what’s coming . . . plus, he’s fifty. Maybe he can’t anymore. But then Marcus lay on top of her, and it was very evident that, even at fifty, he could.
He bent his bright head to her breasts. She felt his tongue working against her, and wondered if he sucked, whether there would be milk, and how it would taste. I love you, she thought, astonished at the sweetness of it, pulsing through her with her heartbeat. I’ll always love you. She felt him poised against her, breathing hard and trembling, the tip of his cock hot and slick but waiting, again, for it to be her choice. Lizzie twisted her hips and felt him slip inside of her.
Afterward, lying spent and flushed beside him, she said, That was lovely, and he smiled lazily, one hand still between her legs, saying, I want to watch you come again.
At three in the morning, when one or the other of the twins usually woke up, she pulled the crisp white cover up to his chin, and bent to deposit a gentle kiss between his shoulder blades.
At six, he woke up, drew her against him. Oh, baby, he groaned, his mouth hot against her breast where, until that morning, the bandage had been, and she felt her throat close. I should tell you, she started to say. Tell me what? he asked, and she shook her head, swallowing the words I’m sick, I’m having an operation, I won’t have breasts at all next week. Instead, she pressed her lips against his and straddled him, slipping him inside of her and riding him, with her breasts dangling over his lips like ripe fruit, like the grapes Tantalus could never quite reach.
Later, with her body twined around his, she said, I love you, and he said, Love you too, kid, tears slipping from his eyes because, of the two of them, he’d always been quicker to cry . . . and quicker to sleep.
For a few rapturous moments, Lizzie rested her cheek on her hand and watched him breathe. Then, when pearly grayish light was filtering through the blinds and the city was starting to wake beneath her, she slipped out of bed, gathered her clothes from the floor, and bundled them into her suitcase.
She left the maid twenty dollars. She left Marcus a note. This was perfect. I love you. xx, E. Then she pulled on her mommy uniform, tugged her suitcase behind her, and eased the door open, then shut.